17 Scarily Good Website Marketing Ideas for Halloween
Did you know that Americans spend an average of $8.4 billion on Halloween each year? That’s right, Halloween has become the second most popular US holiday after Christmas. So get into the holiday spirit to boost your business and show customers that you love All Hallows’ Eve as much as they do. Check out these 17 scarily good website marketing ideas for Halloween.
- Spook up your online store – place some Halloween-inspired icons such as monsters, bats and skulls around your store. Switch to a spookier text font and alter the names of your products to give them a Halloween theme, think: Creepy Cake Decorations for a baking store or Zombie Survival Gear for an outdoor clothing range.
- Run a Halloween contest – set up a contest on your social media channels asking people to send in photos of their Halloween costumes, decorations, parties and food. Give a prize for the winning entries and share photos of your own employees taking part.
- Dress up your logo – make some temporary design changes to your logo. You could add some Halloween motifs like a witch’s hat or a pair of glowing eyes. Easier still, you could change the colour of your logo to black and orange for the holiday period.
- Create a Halloween hash tag – think up a clever hash tag campaign that combines Halloween and your brand to circulate on social media. One extremely successful example of this is the #oreohorrorstories campaign.
- Hold a pumpkin hunt – place pumpkin icons around your website, particularly on key landing pages, and challenge your customers to hunt for them. Offer a discount or special gift for anyone who finds all of the pumpkins and hand out clues on your social media channels. You can take this a step further by getting other businesses to join in and spread the hunt to their websites.
- Have a Halloween flash sale – promote a time-limited flash sale of your products and services for the holiday period. Create an eye-catching poster to publicize the sale and share it with your social media followers and email subscribers.
- Make a scary YouTube video – make a short video that ties your business in with Halloween. It could be a zombie invasion in your office or a scary prank involving your employees. Ford’s spooky Halloween car wash prank for instance has been viewed over 1.8 million times on YouTube!
- Send a Halloween newsletter – schedule a newsletter to wish your customers a Happy Halloween. Share some Halloween tips with them or list details about festive events in your local area. You can also offer readers a gift as a Halloween treat.
- Create some creepy GIFS – design some Halloween-themed GIFS to use on your website, social media channels and newsletters.
- Produce a Halloween infographic – this doesn’t have to be directly related to your business as long as it includes your brand logo and a link to your website. Try something like: Scariest Halloween movies, Most popular Halloween candy or Classic costumes for Halloween. Make sure the infographic looks spooky and is highly shareable.
- Organize a virtual trick-or-treat – link up with other businesses to offer treats for people to collect. Create a graphic to advertise what each business is offering and send it out to your mailing list and social media followers. Ask each business taking part to do the same.
- Sponsor or host a Halloween event – do some festive advertising. Choose a local Halloween event like a costume parade or haunted house to sponsor or create some goody bags with your logo on to be given out at local events. You can even host your own spooky event and invite customers.
- Change your favicon – alter the icon that appears next to your URL in the address bar of your browser. Give it a Halloween twist such as a flash of orange or add a Halloween motif.
- Write a Halloween-themed blog post – create a fun Halloween post for your blog. Get creative and share holiday tips related to your business. If you run a home décor website, this could mean a top 10 list of Halloween decorations or if you have a food-related business you could write a post about spooky cake design ideas.
- Run a social media poll – engage people by running a poll or vote on your social media channels. You could get your office staff to dress up in Halloween costumes or bring in spooky treats, take photos of them and ask your audience to decide who wins.
- Give away Halloween treats – offer your customers an extra treat when they buy something from your site or sign up to your service over Halloween. This could be anything from a free product to a discount or gift card.
- Produce some Halloween-themed products – make some special, limited-edition products for Halloween. Create an orange and black version of a popular product, for example, or add some Halloween emblems.
Do you have any more scarily good website marketing ideas for Halloween? Share them in the comment section below!
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Halloween is absolutely one of my top favorite holidays! These seems like some extremely fun marketing ideas. The only thing I would caution are those Halloween item names. You don’t want to accidentally go misleading your customers.
I think it’s important to try and appeal to multiple age ranges in what ever Halloween things you do. People often tend to focus on children, but there are a lot of adult Halloween lovers out there. As per Disney’s annual Halloween celebration, I can even say there’s a lot of adult that like trick or treating! Of course the most important factor is always fun!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Annabel! It’s great that you love Halloween and these marketing ideas. You bring up a good point about being careful with Halloween item names, as misleading customers could be harmful to your brand’s reputation. And I totally agree with you that it’s important to appeal to different age ranges, not just children. Halloween can be a fun holiday for everyone to enjoy!
Halloween is such a fun time for children and adults alike. I knew that many people spend a lot of money around Halloween time, but $8.4 billion? That is insane! The holidays in general are a great time to change up businesses to drive more sales since people are in the spirit. You included so many great tips that I will apply when the Halloween holiday comes about this year. I like the idea of sending extra spooky treats, rewards, or discounts! For my fitness line, we plan on changing our packaging to be black and orange and we are going to include some Halloween-themed stickers!
It’s fantastic that you found the article helpful, Ben! Your idea of changing up your product packaging and including Halloween-themed stickers is a creative and fun way to engage with customers during the holiday season. Adding these little extra touches can help to make your brand stand out and increase sales. Good luck with your Halloween marketing efforts!
Having a website set up for Halloween can be fun. I have a website I use to decorate for the holidays it is fun and when decorating for Halloween there are so many possibilities. You had some good ideas and I think giving customers a Halloween treat would be a nice way to thank them for their business. Thanks for the ideas.
Hi Gail, I’m glad you enjoyed the article and found the ideas helpful! Halloween is definitely a fun time to get creative with your website and marketing strategies. Offering a Halloween treat to your customers is a great way to show appreciation for their business and add a festive touch to the overall shopping experience. Good luck with your holiday website decorating!
I’m surprised to see that Halloween is the second most popular holiday in the United States. There have been religious attacks on this holiday and attempts to do away with it for as long as I can remember. It’s actually a really important day in Old World customs and traditions where people honoured their ancestors and also showed their respect to the Spirit World around us. That’s actually where our modern day Trick or Treat and costume wearing came from, though the true meaning is largely “lost” now.
Brief history lesson aside, though, this post has great business promotion ideas in it. I’m not able to change my website theme for the holiday (the company controls the layout), but this has given me some great thoughts on ways to spice up home parties, as well as put together product promotions and offer incentives. I’ll even be able to apply this to other holidays and seasons. Thank you for the creative spark!
~Cory S.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Cory! It’s interesting to learn about the history and origins of Halloween, and it’s great to hear that the post has inspired you with some creative ideas for promoting your business during the holiday season. Offering incentives and promotions is a great way to engage customers and increase sales, and I’m glad the post has provided some useful tips. Best of luck with your Halloween promotions and future holiday campaigns!